1. Field of the Invention
The present application is related generally to a data processing system and in particular to a method and apparatus for capturing data. More particularly, the present application is directed to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for enabling links and attachments within a screen capture to be active and accessible.
2. Description of the Related Art
A screen capture image is an image or copy of the contents of an output display, such as a monitor, digital camera display screen, or any other output display. In other words, a screen capture is a picture, image, or graphic representation of the output a user would see when a web page, digital image, document, or other content is displayed by an application. A screen capture may also be referred to as a screen shot or a screen dump.
A user can create a screen capture by displaying a document or page that a user wants to copy, selecting a screen capture option, such as by selecting a “print screen” function, and saving the copied screen capture into a document file. The user can then send the screen capture to a recipient. The recipient can view the screen capture to see exactly what was on the user's screen when the user created the screen capture.
Today, users send screen captures via email and as attachments for presentations, instruction, demonstrations, tutorials, record keeping, and many other purposes. For example, applications frequently provide screen capture images in a tutorial to teach a user how to utilize the application. A user can view screen captures that show a user how various menus and tool bars appear when displayed and steps in implementing various functions of the application. In another example, if a web page designer wants to demonstrate a functionality of a new web page design to a customer, the user can send the customer screen captures of the new web page design before the web page is active and available online. If the new web page design included links to other web pages, the screen capture image, which is an exact copy of the output display, would also include images of the links.
However, a screen capture only serves as a visual display. The links in a screen capture image are only images or copies of the actual links in the web page and are typically not active, functional links and attachments. For example, if the screen capture is an image of a web page for movie reviews that includes links to local movie theaters, a user can select a link in the original web page display to retrieve the linked movie theater web page and display the selected movie theater's linked content to the user. However, if a user attempts to select the same link in a screen capture of the web page for movie reviews, the linked content for the selected link will not be displayed because the link in the screen capture is not a functional link itself.
Similarly, if a user creates a screen capture of a web page having attached documents and linked document pages, the screen capture image will include images of the attached document icons and links that appear identical to the icons and links in the original web page. If the user selects an icon representing an attached document or a link for a linked document in the original web page, the attached document is retrieved by the user's web browser and displayed. However, if the user attempts to select the icon representing the attached or linked document in the screen capture, the attached or linked document will not be retrieved because links and file attachments in current screen captures are typically not active and functional links and document attachments.
Currently, if a user wants to view linked content or an attached document shown in a screen capture image, the user cannot retrieve the linked content or attached document using the screen capture image. The user would have to request a copy of the linked content or attached document from the person that created the screen capture and/or from any other person that may have access to the desired content. In some cases, the user may be unable to obtain the linked or attached content. Moreover, even if the user is able to obtain the linked or attached content upon request, current methods of requesting desired linked or attached content is inefficient, inconvenient, burdensome, and unreliable.